Video: What a ball! Eoin Morgan gets the perfect welcome to County cricket

Eoin Morgan is not playing IPL. Instead, he’s spending this April-May in England, playing County Championship for Middlesex, something which he hasn’t done in the last 5 years. All these years, he’s been an IPL regular (except in 2011, when he was absent due to injury), and played in more pressure inducing, but less demanding conditions.

And look what he was served as his first delivery in County this season:

http://youtu.be/HouAhJjMAxQ

What an absolute jaffa! First ball duck to start a season where he’s aiming to make a Test claim. How about that? Jon Lewis, the 38-year-old craftsman of Sussex, delivered a gem, a welcome, telling Morgan in no uncertain terms what challenge lay in front of him.

But Morgan’s ready to battle it out in England, making sure he works on his technique, creasing out the minor flaws in his batting. It’s been a bit unconvincing so far. In 3 matches, his scores have been 0, 2, 86, 33 and 27. He hasn’t been his dominating self, which he usually has been under lights, wearing a sponsors-heavy jersey during this time of the year in another part of the world.

He’s fighting though, changing his stance and working on his trigger movement. But one of his biggest challenges would be to curb his instincts which have been trained to make him do crazy things at this time of the year. For a batsman of his talent, rest should follow with time.